Finest Episode of Byer, Zamata’s Comedy Podcast

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Individually, comedians Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata are already bright-burning comedy stars: Byer is the three-time Emmy-nominated TV host of reveals like Nailed It! and Wipeout, and Zamata is a Saturday Night time Stay alum with a starring position on ABC’s House Economics. However as followers of their bubbly, buoyant Earwolf podcast Best Friends know, they’re at their funniest after they work collectively.

Finest Mates emerged in June 2019 from the hosts’ actual 12-year-plus friendship, which started on the Upright Residents Brigade Theatre in New York and hit full bloom after they co-created the underappreciated 2013 Above Common miniseries Pursuit of Sexiness. The podcast consists of three segments: Byer and Zamata catching one another up on their private lives; “testing” their friendship not directly, normally with a “How Properly Do You Truly Know Your Finest Buddy?” quiz or some form of semantic debate; and responding to listener calls and emails about easy methods to preserve lengthy friendships. Often a pair of company reveals up, like Workplace Women co-hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey or drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova, to share their very own tales about changing into besties.

Not like many popular podcasts, every episode is delightfully compact, usually working a decent 45 minutes with out adverts — a veritable Ferrero Rocher of comedy. It’s additionally emotionally breezy: Although the ultimate section sometimes veers into heavier “Am I the asshole?”–style fan questions, Finest Mates isn’t a lot the straight-faced recommendation present it’s billed as on Stitcher Premium as an prolonged improv session between two goobers extremely attuned to — and continually urgent — one another’s buttons.

For Byer, whose balls-to-the-wall strategy takes up a lot of the present’s oxygen, Zamata’s withering deadpan is a right away set off. Longtime listeners are accustomed to Byer’s snicker sounding out earlier than anybody has an opportunity to talk, normally adopted by an apology. However she additionally makes herself giggle continually, sometimes at some form of mind fart or ignorant query, and when she begins to lose self-control, Zamata rapidly spins out, too. Because of this, even in episodes centering on intense material in friendships — like how the inequities of America’s prison system typically destroys them — essentially the most palpable vibe is contagious pleasure.

If getting a viral load of infectious happiness sounds interesting, then episode 23, “Nicole Wants to Know How You Put Your Bra On,” is the closest that Finest Mates ever got here to a superspreader occasion. The episode opens with Byer belting out the Backstreet Boys’ “All people” — “Finest Mates again, all proper!” — along with her signature aptitude. Zamata tries to leap in, misses Byer’s cue, and recovers by sharing a secret: She, Lance Bass, and Joey Fatone danced to “Bye Bye Bye” collectively as soon as. Impressed that Bass and Fatone nonetheless knew the NSYNC choreography, Byer challenges Zamata to guess when the track truly got here out. However Zamata will get it improper, which her co-host suggests is definitely simply half of a bigger lack of ability to calculate something accurately, together with the fundamentals of a dinner test. “I get it improper on a regular basis and also you get so mad at me,” Zamata says, embarrassed. “Since you don’t take issues into consideration!” Byer semi-faux-scolds. “We’ll have two bottles of wine, two entrees, and a dollop of ice cream, and also you’ll be like, ‘I don’t know, $60?’”

The velocity of the bounce from boy bands to dinner enjoyable to a full-blown rant leaves Zamata whiplashed and wheezing with laughter. So simply over 5 minutes in, Byer steps up with a good funnier story of a latest Benihana dinner whereas her BFF catches her breath:

Byer: “What a fantastic enjoyable time. It’s hibachi, so somebody entertains and grills for you on a … scorching scorching … not-grill? A scorching, scorching … plate? Scorching massive scorching plate? An enormous scorching plate?”

Zamata: [Laughing.] “Like a range, proper?”

Byer: [Furiously.] “No! It’s a Large. Scorching. Plate!”

Zamata: “Like … a desk?”

Byer: “Yeah, massive scorching desk to prepare dinner on. ’Trigger there’s no divots like a range.”

Zamata: “… Divots?”

Byer’s voice twists and lilts as she imitates first her Benihana server (shoutout to Miguel), then switches to enjoying every of her 4 dinner company and obnoxious desk neighbors, together with a lady sick of getting “hen fried rice eaten out of her titties.” It’s a tour de pressure efficiency made all of the extra spectacular when Byer swerves all of the sudden again into her personal voice, demanding Zamata decide to a trip in Cabo collectively. This time, it’s Zamata who lectures Byer: “You ask me to do stuff, and I’m at all times saying sure! I’m by no means the one holding us again. So open up your goddamn planner and inform me when you’re accessible!”

As their bickering provides approach to some very free riffing on the most effective Italian ice (which Zamata has by no means had) and their dream performing roles (Zamata: Vernita Green’s daughter; Byer: Storm’s finest good friend), the episode actually hits its stride when Byer mentions that she damage her thumb so badly whereas “opening a jar” (or so she says) that she couldn’t put her bra on accurately. Flummoxed, Zamata asks, “Do you latch it within the entrance after which twist it round?” Byer once more grows incensed: “Are you kidding?! No! Wait, do you do this? Does everybody do this?” Zamata and producer Kimmie Gregory each say sure, however sound engineer Jordan Duffy says that, no, she latches it within the again, like Byer. “Truthfully, I’ve by no means been extra shook in my life,” Byer declares, and section two is all of the sudden on like Donkey Kong. Gregory leaves the studio at 26 minutes to wrangle all of the “the women of Earwolf” for a first-of-its-kind debate on bra etiquette. The chaos as they return is immediately palpable. “Bras! Bras! Bras!,” they cheer. “State your title and age and the way you place a bra on!” Byer bellows.

The primary worker, Dana (“I’m 31!”), agrees with Zamata: hook in entrance, twist round, flip the cups. “That’s the right approach,” Zamata laughs. “One for the insane approach,” Byer spits again. The subsequent, Mindy, complicates issues when she says she takes her bra off over her head with out undoing the hooks. (Zamata, incredulously: “So you’re taking it off like … like a shirt?”) Kristen notes that she hardly ever makes use of hooked bras in any respect, however when she does, she employs Byer’s technique. Then Hannah breaks the stalemate by confessing that she, too, hooks her bras on the entrance.

Byer is compelled to cede defeat, and does so with scrumptious smarm. “So I suppose Kimmie and Sasheer win. Thanks very a lot for sharing with us.” However the section closes on a notice of real unity between the hosts, with Byer petitioning fellow plus-size girls to name and write in as an indication of solidarity: “Hey, if you happen to’re an actual massive fuckin’ fatty and also you wanna let me understand how you placed on a bra, you possibly can e-mail us. And please preface it by going, ‘Hello, I’m fats as fuck!’”

The recommendation section reveals simply how arduous it’s for Byer and Zamata to remain critical when a listener leaves a tormented voicemail in search of recommendations on easy methods to break up with the “finest good friend” she walked down the aisle regardless of absolutely despising her. Their options are honorable and earnest at first. Byer suggests she “simply let it fizzle,” whereas Zamata argues there needs to be “an official breakup.” However as is their wont, issues rapidly devolve into silliness once more. “How can this different woman not sense it?” Zamata wonders with a perceptible smirk. Byer immediately picks up what she’s placing down: “Possibly she’s … doofy? An actual fucking Doofus and Gallant scenario!” Exhausted on the effort of being actual, Byer decides to throw within the towel:

Byer: “I had a good time, however I gotta go. Wanna come to my home later?”

Zamata: “Yeah!”

Byer: “However I could be too drunk.”

Zamata: “Okay. Then no.”

As with many different episodes of the podcast, this one fades out with the co-hosts laughing collectively after 63 uncharacteristically outrageous minutes. The sound is so nice that you simply virtually overlook how shitty it have to be to attend a marriage for somebody you hate with none steerage on easy methods to keep away from it sooner or later. That’s the facility of Finest Mates.

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